Generally regarded as "America's Painter," realist Andrew Wyeth is perhaps the most well known of the artistic Wyeth family dynasty, which includes his father N.C. Wyeth, sister Henriette Hurd, and son Jamie Wyeth. Although most recent explorations of this artist have focused on his family and on the Helga pictures, this unique publication chronicles seven decades of an underappreciated yet historically relevant aspect of his relationship to home and community. Andrew Wyeth: Close Friends is the first critical look at a significant body of paintings and works on paper depicting Wyeth's African-American friends and neighbors in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, a quaint village on the Brandywine River, where he has lived since birth.<BR>Andrew Wyeth: Close Friends includes over 100 color reproductions of major tempera and watercolor paintings and numerous black-and-white images of graphite drawings. Works reproduced are drawn from public and private collections, with a large number from the personal collection of the Wyeths. In addition to a foreword by Museum Director R. Andrew Maass, the book includes family photographs and facsimiles of personal correspondence.